Sales & Earnings

The evolution of new drugs to treat diabetes has enabled some diabetes franchises to shrug off biosimilar competition to insulins. But is some of the growth of therapies for diabetes and obesity a result of the pandemic?

Even as two biosimilar filings in Europe are stuck due to a lack of inspection staff and a biosimilar could be approved in the UK without a Phase III trial, Aurobindo has licensed novel drug Ryzneuta from Yifan Pharma. Meanwhile, a $650-700m revenue forecast for the specialty business has been pushed back as both overall revenues and profits declined during Q2.

In a third-quarter earnings report that was difficult to fault AstraZeneca left big pharma earnings season on a high note. But raised full-year guidance depends on Evusheld sales and maybe China.

Teva announced the appointment of former Sandoz CEO Richard Francis as its next leader as Kare Schultz steps down.

Biocon, which is set to close its deal with Viatris shortly, says it is in a “very good position” to vie for a share of the adalimumab biosimilar pie in the US and has had encouraging preliminary discussions with payers.

In this week's podcast edition of Five Must-Know Things: a market snapshot of inflammatory bowel disease; will biotech bounce back in 2023?; Phase III miss for Roche’s Alzheimer’s candidate; how Japan’s top firms did in the quarter; and China showcase hints at policies and strategies.

Monjuvi is still struggling to make progress commercially and the hopes of lucrative royalty streams from partners Roche and GSK have dried up but MorphoSys is keeping faith in its fully owned pipeline.

One-off opportunities lift Alembic’s US generics business in the fiscal second quarter but the market continues to pose challenges amid surging oversupply and price erosion. On the other hand, a string of injectable approvals, including for ketorolac tromethamine, could open up opportunities for the company given the 'on and off' shortages.

The Swedish biotech’s successful launch in the US of Tarpeyo for immunoglobulin A nephropathy is progressing well and a Chinese approval is on the horizon as partner Everest’s application is accepted by regulators.

While big tech is suffering from a return to normality after the pandemic, big pharma always had a recovery in its base business to return to. But after the third-quarter earnings season, it seems both base and pandemic pharmaceutical businesses are still co-existing for now.

The German firm’s oncology franchise grew to more than €400m in the third quarter as sales of Bavencio doubled, while anticancer partnerships and pipeline updates drew interest.

Now approved for the treatment as well as the prevention of COVID-19 in the EU and Japan, the UK major’s antibody combo passed the $500m sales barrier in the third quarter and CEO Pascal Soriot is confident that growth will continue.